If plates then God

[tagriffy]

Emma is not an impartial party. She has a vested interest in promoting her husbands religious enterprise and wouldn’t undermine him by telling a differing story. Emma says she believes the story, says she rustled plates, and claims her husband was uneducated and couldn’t narrate the tale under his own steam. But we know Joseph was well very well educated on the Bible and was a skilled story teller, specifically about the native Americans - a group of people he was highly interested in with regards to their backstory.

So you’re saying she was part of a long con from the get go? Does all the evidence seem to support that?

Regards,
MG

I Have Questions can answer as they will, but for my part, acknowledging she's not an impartial party is nowhere near the same thing she was part of a long con. It just means that--as is the case with any other testimony--we have to carefully weigh her story. And there are certain aspects of her story that doesn't cohere with other evidence. For example, she said at the time he dictated the Book of Mormon, Joseph couldn't compose a coherent letter. Yet we actually have a letter written in Joseph's hand around that time that is perfectly coherent.

[Res Ipsa]

Luckily there is a nice, simple solution to that--produce the plates!

For reasons I’ve been spending a good portion of my time on this thread pointing to I don’t see this as an option.

Regards,
MG

Of course it's an option. The angel can bring them right back. You're just engaging in your "Goldilocks God" argument. Your God is so powerful that he can can control the fundamental forces of the universe but so weak he can't eliminate a disease. He has to use the golden plates as a prop because otherwise, no one would believe in him, but can't leave them around for inspection because it would be too easy to believe. You simply make up stuff about God that you can't possibly know to get the answer you want.

[tagriffy]

Of course, the big question is what to make of this.

There is the possibility they were telling the truth.

Regards,
MG

Sure there is, but that misses the point. Remember, huckleberry is pointing out the the evidence we have points to the Book of Mormon being fictional, in turn calling into question what the plates were, then contrasting it with Emma's story. So if we grant that they were telling the truth--at least as they knew it--then something else is going on. So the question of what to make of it still stands.

[tagriffy]

Luckily there is a nice, simple solution to that--produce the plates!

For reasons I’ve been spending a good portion of my time on this thread pointing to I don’t see this as an option.

Regards,
MG

Unfortunately, that just puts us back square one.

[Rivendale]

Emma also claimed Joseph didn't practice polygamy. That isn't a good look for credibility.

[huckelberry]

On the one hand there is the large disparity between the Book of Mormon history and the historical information we have about the New World. There is the dense 19th century American quality of the book. These significantly suggest the book is a fictional creation. If so the plates are a theatrical creation.

On the other hand MG points out Emma believes the story. she rustled the plates under the cloth and her husband was uneducated so could not do the dictating from his own brain.

Of course, the big question is what to make of this.

There is the possibility they were telling the truth.

Regards,
MG

In making the comparison I saw no reason to question Emma's statement. In fact it makes more sense to take it at face value, at least in terms of the comparison.

/// Just because questioned I will point out Emma is building her sons authority and denying polygamy. She is coloring a bit but I see no reason to think she did not believe in the Book of Mormon and the restoration she wanted her son to lead.

I do think the apologetic proposal that Joseph lacked the education to be the creator of the Book of Mormon to be empty. I do not mean he had a secret university degree in creative writing but that things like that are not requirements for storytelling.

[Res Ipsa]

So you’re saying she was part of a long con from the get go? Does all the evidence seem to support that?

Regards,
MG

I Have Questions can answer as they will, but for my part, acknowledging she's not an impartial party is nowhere near the same thing she was part of a long con. It just means that--as is the case with any other testimony--we have to carefully weigh her story. And there are certain aspects of her story that doesn't cohere with other evidence. For example, she said at the time he dictated the Book of Mormon, Joseph couldn't compose a coherent letter. Yet we actually have a letter written in Joseph's hand around that time that is perfectly coherent.

MG is oversimplifying human nature to the point of absurdity. It's black and white thinking. We really have no hope of knowing what Emma was thinking at the time. We have trouble assessing the motives and thinking of people who are alive and that we know fairly well.

[tagriffy]

MG is oversimplifying human nature to the point of absurdity. It's black and white thinking. We really have no hope of knowing what Emma was thinking at the time. We have trouble assessing the motives and thinking of people who are alive and that we know fairly well.

I know.

[MG 2.0]

Well, thanks!

The last number of posts seem to bypass the factual testimony of Emma Smith.

https://rsc.BYU.edu/sites/default/files ... 0smith.pdf

After everything that Emma had been through, we still have this testimony from her later life.

It’s interesting that besides the three and the eight witnesses the only other witnesses that claimed to have actually seen the plates were women. Mary Whitmer, etc.

This isn’t unusual as one peruses the scriptures. It seems as though God may trust women more than men at certain times and under certain conditions.

One might ask the question why?

But that’s another discussion.

Was Emma a ‘one off’ and can comfortably be ignored while moving on…such has been done for the last couple of pages or so?

You suggested through your link earlier that the ‘plates’ may have been a tile brick. You seemed to have ignored Emma’s testimony.

Why?

And then others moved on after showing your link to be untrustworthy and yet, essentially, are making arguments that the plates weren’t real or that they were ‘materializations’.

Emma’s testimony doesn’t seem to allow for that.

Anyway, I agree, this has been an interesting thread with many interesting comments. Res Ipsa’s commentary on why Joseph would have gone to so much trouble to protect the plates doesn’t quite do it for me.

Gosh, the persecution became so intense he and Emma had to hide the plates in a barrel of beans and move to a different location where they were less likely to undergo constant surveillance.

Some of these ‘evidences’ seem to be overlooked and/or reinterpreted to steer away from the possibility that they might indeed be based in truth.

If the plates were real that opens up some possibilities that some folks would rather not entertain.

Regards,
MG

The fact that MG 2.0 talks about "possibilities" demonstrates that, whatever he's doing, he's not attempting to make a serious evaluation of evidence.

I’ll repeat my last sentence in the post you’re referring to.

“If the plates were real that opens up some possibilities that some folks would rather not entertain.”

As it stands, that sentence is true.

And I’m also saying that this…obviously…is why you and others go to great lengths to disregard and/or diss the testimony of Emma and others, including women, who testified that the plates were real.

You CAN’T have real plates.

NO MATTER WHAT.

Real plates would change your whole worldview.

Right?

If plates, then God. And the God of Mormonism no less.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

For reasons I’ve been spending a good portion of my time on this thread pointing to I don’t see this as an option.

Regards,
MG

Of course it's an option. The angel can bring them right back. You're just engaging in your "Goldilocks God" argument. Your God is so powerful that he can can control the fundamental forces of the universe but so weak he can't eliminate a disease. He has to use the golden plates as a prop because otherwise, no one would believe in him, but can't leave them around for inspection because it would be too easy to believe. You simply make up stuff about God that you can't possibly know to get the answer you want.

Earlier in the thread, as I’ve said, I have already discussed this. Existing plates would create a number of conundrums that would directly impact the Plan of Salvation and the doctrine of separation from God and living by faith.

Regards,
MG